


Set To Fall In

by Go0se



Series: Spaces She Leaves [8]
Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Hoodie!Sarah, Huddling For Warmth, Kissing, Once again I Can't Believe It's Not Creepypasta, People who sit together in weird pocket universes and makeout while not trying to kill anyone, Pocket Universe Hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-24 06:43:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8361535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Go0se/pseuds/Go0se
Summary: You wake up in the forest, but something is different.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is the last bit with these two I'm gonna write, probably! Long-time written, shorter time edited, posting now to fill out my "Huddling for warmth" square in OTW Trope Bingo. (Also just for the record, this originally had two extra pages wherein shit went really bad really quick, but I elected to cut those out and just have the two sad kids be kind of happy for once, one (1) time, in their shadowy lives. You're welcome.)  
> Special shoutout to [mistresspiece](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/mistresspiece), who supported me through a lot including writing this somewhat-nonsense, and also who supplied the beautiful song that I took the title from. ('Psyche', by Massive Attack). You are a good friend, dear.
> 
> ~~

You wake up alone in the forest as always. A memory of pain resonates all along the back and center of you, along your spine and your insides; not localized like usual, in your head and your healed knee, but everywhere. Strange. You lay still for a second, processing.

 

It hits you then: the air is still around you. No bird song, no sound of water. This isn't a forest, it’s nowhere, its _Its_ place. Suddenly breathing is harder.

A noise to the left of you. You press yourself closer to the ground, not thinking of anything _purposefully_ not thinking--

And then you see what made the noise. Who.

 

You relax; you get to your feet and move through the trees toward her.  
  
Of course it's her. The only one (other than trouble) who follows you, and Nothing wouldn't’ve waited for you to see it before pouncing. In the strange nowhere-light she looks the same as always: wary. She only relaxes the barest amount when she realizes the shape moving toward her is you. 

(You hadn't called out to her. What would you say? Names are unknown, don’t matter anyhow.)

When she's close enough for you to see her eyes you notice they're strange around the edges, all red that’s smeared out like she was bleeding or hasn't slept in days and days. You wouldn't doubt that, it's happened often enough.

  
But she's hurt: a black mark on the entire side of her face like she's fallen into something flat and unyielding. Blood on her mouth.

Alarmed, you reach out without thinking.  
She reaches up too, not punching your hand away but intercepting it, her eyes narrowing in confusion. You press lightly on her cheekbone, her hand moving with yours. The darkness you assumed was a bruise smears away under your thumb.

Oh. Soot or dirt or ash– terrible signs, all of them. But at least it isn't an injury.  
She blinks, understanding curling over her face. She squeezes your hand briefly before letting go, wiping her face with her sweater sleeve so the rest of the mark comes off, leaving its remnants all down her arm. Her mouth is still bloody, but that could be from anything.

And your anger at whatever had done her harm drains away.

She nods, and you nod back.

Hello.  
Hello.

The two of you are a unit so when you turn back to back, to better see, you turn together, keeping close so either can grab the other if you see anything. You stand quiet in the middle of the thin tall pale trees for a long time.

Overhead there's a sun that isn't the sun. The sky around it is black, not like night but like death. Frost creeps over the ground, a living thing, a time lapse in a greyscale camera.

She is holding a camera. You can feel it nudge the back of your hip every time her arm sways. It’s as much a part of her as her face, as her floods. It doesn’t matter much to you.

The two of you look, and you listen for everything. 

 

When you finally turn to each other again you've both decided the same thing: you need to move.

 

It's like most nights you've ever known and most days she's ever woken. Decision made, you both pick a direction and start walking. You following her, her following you, through the strange suspended lightness and stillness. You look for somewhere to stand where the edges won't blur and fade.

 

 

While you’re walking the shock of scenery change wears off, and you realize the cold of this place all at once. It's already halfway seeped into your bones, all the way under your skin. Nothing to do about it. You hunch your shoulders instinctively, and you keep walking. Your breath is like smoke in front of you. In front of her, too.

  
Eventually a shed materializes, concrete walls and broken red roof a few dozen feet away. It looms out of the shadow like its grown there, but that's no surprise.

You look at her to find her looking back at you. Your shrug is a mirror to hers.

It's a trap. That doesn't matter.  The cold and weakened-pale sun is sliding away from you, across the nothing-sky like a body across a table. Any shelter is shelter.

The shack’s doorless doorway looms open, like a throat; the top of the frame is rotted almost to the point of pulling apart from the edge of the roof. She goes to it first, making a path in front of you through the wasted leaves. She moves over the ground like it might give away under her feet at any second. (And it might; you remember.)

Behind her, you get close enough to see that there's still panes of glass in the shack’s window frame. The view inside it might’ve shown is blocked by ragged wood: a piece of lumber, fallen in. It reflects the outside instead, faint in the fading light.

 

You notice two things at the same time then.  
The face you see in the dusty fractured glass is paler than normal, eyes and lips darker and bruised-looking in their centres, too much for it to only be the cold.  
And you can't hear Timothy's thoughts or heartbeat or anything, anywhere. You're alone.

  
You stand for a minute. Unthinking unable to think.

Timothy's the only reason you're alive, it's impossible for you to have _lost_ him, as much as he'd tried over the years to lose you. It's not possible.

 

Someone’s hand on your arm. You flinch, temper flaring, but you push it down: it’s only her. She’d noticed you hadn’t followed her, had turned around from the doorway, touched your jacket to get your attention. Her face is a question.

And you think, since you both got here her face is like her mask, reddened eyes and red mouth. The blood could've been from anything. Can yours be bruised from anything? Or is it dirt? Did something _happen_ to Timothy to take him from you? Have you failed? What don’t you remember?  
The questions rattle through your emptier head like your sole heartbeat through your chest. It's unsettling, this feeling, this sudden nothing-space inside.

 

And you think: it's impossible for you to be without Timothy, as impossible as it is for him to be without _you._

And you think: it's impossible to go from one place to another without moving, and impossible for something to have no eyes but see everything always.

And you think: how much he’d hated you. You remember all the times you'd pulled back or been forced back by the seizures like lightning storms. Unmoving but watching Timothy finding your faces, and watching him throw them away or crushing and breaking them. But you’d made so many of them (had to; protection, camoflauge, mirrors) he was never able to find them all.  
They were safety. Safe places.

And you breathe, and your heart thuds alone, and you think: at least Timothy won't have to deal with you now. That's what he's wanted; an end to everything, to you; all the times he'd woken up sick and afraid. But _not dead_ and not remembering what had happened to him, protected, that was what you'd be trying to do and it had worked. It had _worked._

She shakes your shoulder; and you look up. She tilts her head towards the shed doorway again.  
The light is falling. Any shelter is shelter. You both know.

Timothy is gone—for now, gone—but somehow you are here.

You need to keep yourself safe, maybe. You nod, go inside.

 

 

She steps in behind you and then around you, picking a spot to sit on the ground that’s a couple feet from a dark corner, with her back resting against the wall so that if the doorway were to darken she'd be the first to see and the last to be seen.

Hidden eyes everywhere. So many mirrors.

You reach up to Timothy's face, your own face, and touch the bruises. Or the dirt-- you’re not _sore._

And you think: it's happened and is happening now and refusing to know what's around you has never done you any good.

 

You've been standing staring into the distance and she's been looking up at you with her face screwed up in confusion and so you sit down, closer to the corner than her because you know she picked the place she did along the wall for a reason.

Then you reconsider and sit inside the corner itself because having two walls solidly (enough) to rest your back against eases some of the instinct for flight. The light's all but gone now, just leaving the pixelated gray that you remember clings to everything here—frightening--but you can't feel the static or spikes in the back of your head that would mean Nothing appearing, so maybe now, for whatever reason, it will leave you for a while. Just a while.

  
You sit and she sits and you both breathe out smoke. Neither of you speak much, it’s enough to be still, silent. Watchful.

 

 

 

You don't get hungry here. The ache in your stomach that develops after sometime isn't the same as a longing for food. You don’t want for water, either.

Abruptly you wonder if you'd still want to smoke, if you were anywhere but here, or if that was something that Timothy wanted that didn't affect you without him. You wonder if you'll still prefer dark coffee from the pot over the too-sweet milk-infused kind that most stores you stole it or bought it from seemed to sell. Not that you'd minded too much, exactly.

You remember, once, getting her drinks with Timothy's money; it'd been cold then too, and she seemed to've appreciated them. Warm and sweet while you passed the cup over, hoping it'd stave off... something. The chill, for a while. And it had. It'd felt good, sitting with her on the stoop of the tiny store, staring at the trees.

 

Back in the non-forest the temperature drops, again, almost audibly. You shift closer to her instinctively, and her movement is a mirror. Closing ranks.

You glance to her, and her mouth and eyes are still red, but she’s still awake too. Her skin’s slowly getting redder, with the cold snap, the opposite of burns, but she doesn’t react to it, only rubs her forehead with the heel of her hand.  
Your fingers are starting to numb, so you shove them in your pockets. You miss the blanket you got her. It was a light thing and ragged but it kept both of you warm, and her by herself, you hoped. You've never asked her but she's never given it back. Surely that’s a good sign, the same way the draining air is a bad one.

 

Your thoughts are swirling leaves around a storm drain, drawing slowly but surely until you're not thinking of memories but just her, here, closer beside you now.

She's sitting with her knees bent up to under her chin to keep warmer, her sharp elbows a couple of inches from the sides of your knees.

And you are sitting very close; you hadn't realized. You can feel warmth seeping off her and you’re suddenly conscious of your own, too. Impulse pushes you to look at her properly, so you turn your head. You don't question it, when do you ever?

Her nose and the sides of her mouth are outlined against the seeping light from the open doorway. Her hair is falling over her face again, loose curls forming around the shell of her ears. She exhales, like a dragon, and her eyes are closed, the skin on the back of them almost thin enough to peel away. As reddened as the bags under her eyes.  
And you hope she isn't in pain. She doesn't seem to be. You feel like reaching out and gently pressing on her eyelids, as if the redness would come away under your finger like what you thought was a bruise did.  
You won’t; it'd startle her. You can’t cross the space between the two of you when she isn’t watching. Even now when you’re sitting so closely like this. Especially now.  
And then her eyes open, reflecting nothing in the non–moonlight. Normal eyes, blinking, then looking toward the door, and then at you.

 

She looks at you and you think--  it's all white noise.

You're nervous, which is different than afraid. It takes you a second to realize because there's a lot to be afraid of _here,_ where the air smells like ashes and a seeping dread from the lake that you know is somewhere and everywhere beyond the unending trees, a lake you've drowned in more than once-- but very little to be afraid of _now._  Your heart is speeding up and your bruised but not in-pain face is heating up like you might be blushing. That’s surprising; when have you _ever_ blushed before? Well, once before.

Oh.

What, she says, and it's not an annoyed defense; she doesn't even really ask it as a question. She also doesn't ask “why are you looking at me”, and she's still looking back at you. It occurs to you how close your faces are.

I don't know, you say.

It's truthful; you're really not sure. You don't spend time on lying, why would you. Who would you have to lie to? Unlike Timothy-- but you don't keep thinking of him, because there's nothing you can do for him here. And, you find you don't care.  
  
Especially not when she's smiling.  
  
You've always liked her smile, ever since you first saw it. Back when— you don’t know how long ago. In the summer and the light rain. Both sides of her mouth, small and non-exaggerated like the opposite of her mask.  _Sweet,_ like the drinks you'd shared. She looks sweet to you now. Even though her lips are orange-redder than they should be, still, and your own are still blackened like you coughed up ink or dirt; that hasn't changed. Doesn’t matter that it hasn’t changed.  
You smile back, as much as you can.

 

There’s a long pause like breath.  
  
Then she's pulling away from you, shuffling back toward the door. You worry that you've done something, open your mouth to say _don't go._

Until you realize she's shrugging out of her hoodie, pulling it up over her shoulders that are still both stronger and sharper-edged than you expect them to be. She's wearing the same shirt underneath as you've ever seen her wear, a gray thing that's loose except around her arms, and in the non-light it looks like it glows. She's pulling her hair forward off her shoulder. Looking at you. 

She's pulling her hair forward _for you_ to see _,_ you think with something like awe; and the world your thoughts make up are so narrow, and she's still smiling the same way. 

You should do something, you realize sharply. For a heart-thudding minute you're not sure what. So you just copy her, reciprocate, as the two of you have almost always done. You following her, her following you.  
She's taken off her sweatshirt; you tug at your jacket. It's incredibly strange to be removing it, it seems as much a part of you as your skin. You last had it before you were pushed back; you don't remember where it went, in Timothy's house, he'd thrown it somewhere after the last morning waking up in a forest with it on and him not remembering anything, but— Very little of what Timothy did apparently has any relevance, here, so you take the zipper and undo it even as the small bite of the cold on your fingers makes you wince.  
Underneath it you're wearing a black shirt, one you don't recognize from Timothy's closet, and this makes you relieved. You're... it's difficult for you to think of, why, but you have your own _face_ here so somehow it makes sense that you have your own clothes.  You slide your jacket off your ( _your)_ shoulders onto the leaf-strewn concrete ground behind you.  
And it is colder now and you feel less-- _safe,_ maybe, but— it's worth it, and makes sense, when she's without her outer shell too.

She's looking at you still and it's a good feeling. And you both breathe out your steam for a second and it's like a freeze-frame, but she’s put the camera down.

 

She would make it a freeze-frame anyway, you think, filled with codes and shaking edges-- at least until she shifts forward again, closing the distance between you.

And you lean forward too, bringing your hand up again, uncertainly. At the last second possible, seeing her eyelashes against the not–bruising red, you close your eyes too.

 

And.

You remember her cracked lips against yours from last time, in the rain, with all the growing-trees smell around both of you in the air. Now there's only faint smoke from somewhere, but the memory of the kiss and _this_ kiss sends little waves of happiness through you like bits of songs through static. Your breath from your noses, the two of you, mixes and dissipates into a cloud around your heads, a thin shield erasing you from outside view. You feel her put her arm around the top of your shoulders, maybe to steady herself, so you put your arms around her shoulders, too.  
It's a strain reaching over two pairs of knees like this. You think, it'd be easier if you laid down. You don't say it out loud, like you don't say a lot of things, but somehow she still hears you. The both of you pull back at the same moment, then shift until you're flat on the concrete and dirt floor of the shell of building. Side by side.

Her eyes seem to glint and glitter in the dark. You move forward first this time, still full of _nervous_ but managing to meet her mouth with yours and she presses back; your arm around her shoulders and hers, yours. Warmth pouring off the both of you, even as the flat slab of the floor leaches it from your sides.  
This is good, this is better. Your thoughts are leaves on the ground stuck over with frost and she smells like autumn and warmth, a building lit up from the inside, flickering brighter.

  
But it’s still cold on the floor, and harsh; it'd be better if only one of you had to bear it.

And you think-- you remember her stepping carefully outside, and her falling away from you through the concrete and the dirt with black covering her face and an avalanche of crumbling earth falling after her, empty hands reaching for each other and hitting nothing. And then you're afraid again, instead of nervous, along with an anger you can't explain. Not at her, rarely if ever at her, afraid-- at the idea of her falling anywhere.  
Something must show. She pulls away to look over at the doorway reflexively, and then looks back at you, face written over with confusion and concern.

And you make a choice, and it’s the only path you see, as always.  
You nudge her shoulders forward, a suggestion, and rest your other hand on the side of her ribs-- nervous again but not pulling or pushing, just stabilizing, an invitation, suggestion:  _if you_ -  
  
And she understands, she nods. You forget and never forget how much the two of you understand about each other, somehow.

Your head is rushing like a flood. You slide from your side onto your back and she rolls with you. A moment as the both of you sort out legs and a brief confusion of hands, and then she's put both of her arms on the insides of yours, bracketing your chest, while you automatically put your hands back around her shoulders and then, with only slight hesitance now, back on her ribs.  
She's smiling again. You can't see her face clearly but it's the kind of thing you can feel. Or imagine you can feel. But beyond imagination there is her breath puffing softly across your neck, and above your cheeks.  
You're a little dizzy with the closeness and the physicality of her on top of you. Your knees bracketing her knees, and the way your bodies curve closer or apart, the way her elbows were present against your sides and you could feel her hands on the back of your shoulders, palms up like she's blocking you from falling **.** You wonder if she had the same vision as you, all the crumbling earth. You hope she hadn't. You don't want her to be afraid.

You turn your head slightly, resting the side of your face against hers for a minute, noses brushing as she looks up, and then you kiss again. Songs through the static, rolling waves.

  
There's still blood behind her teeth.  You think that that should make you pause, you remember all of the lessons Timothy had learned about blood and its many dangers, but. You remember all of the times that something sharp had embedded itself into your throat and you hadn't been able to speak or to yell, all the dirt and blackened water and poisoned air that had rushed down it. You think blood is the least worst of it, the least terrible. Especially from someone you--  
you--  
you love. Someone who is watchful and quick on her feet and hides well, someone who knew so much about everything and shared that with you, someone who's helped you, hidden you, given you as much of a place to go and a place to _be_ as you've had of your own choice anywhere, since you woke up the first time under the moon. Someone you love. Yes. Yes.

Your head is spinning.

  
Her shirt shifts by your hand. The skin of her lower back is warm, like her neck and her hands on your shoulders and her mouth. So you shift your palm onto it, pressing closer. And you card your other hand through her hair **,** soft and heavy like her entire being is on you, grounding and real. You can feel her chest rising and falling against yours, or yours with hers.  
She pulls away from the kiss to inhale fully and she's smiling, she is radiant. Radiating. Your vision swims with small lights around her.  
  
You float in the moment together for-- you don't know how long. It doesn't matter, time is stringy and unattached to you in general, and particularly useless here. You are both together, and it _matters_.. So many floating lights all around you.

  
(In the back of your head, where Timothy would be if he watched like you do, you recognize the lights and the sickening omen they bring, the prelude to storms. But you can't think it, you _don't_. You hold onto her tighter.)

 

*


End file.
